On Tuesday (5/1) and Thursday (5/3), from 11am-12pm, I’ll be delivering what have become my annual lectures on Caribbean music to Orlando Patterson‘s “Caribbean Societies” class at Harvard College. Tuesday’s lecture will focus on Afro-Latin traditions, while Thursday’s will turn to the history of Jamaican music, though there will be, of course, some intersections between the two. The lectures will take place in Sever Hall 103.

Coming four years after my initial lectures, during which time I’ve been able to engage a lot closer with all of these musical traditions and their social and cultural histories, this latest series of talks is bound to be better and tighter than ever. If you’d like to hear some excerpts from my talks back in 2003, though, here’s the “Jamaican” lecture in 6 short parts —

[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae1.mp3]
[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae2a.mp3]
[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae2b.mp3]
[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae3a.mp3]
[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae3b.mp3]
[audio:http://www.wayneandwax.com/academic/reggae4.mp3]